07:53 pmSo -- to begin with: I had pizza with wimpdork and I~. We ended up going to the Pizz'a Chicago in Palo Alto and it was all sorts of good. Good conversation, good company, good pizza, and good driving.

Maybe a bit too much pizza, but as I said: "Worst comes to worse, we'll have breakfast for tomorrow." 8)

After that, I set about the task of making myself comfortable and watching Speed Racer on Blue Ray (Yeah -- I know the trademark is 'bluray'. I also think that's stupid and I refuse to support stupidity. Especially in marketing).

That movie is my religion. I spent probably close to 3 hours watching it -- and it's a two hour movie. I've always loved the costume and set design and all the new goodies gave me a chance to really scrutinize it. Not to mention the chance to read every bit of text on the screen.

Some of the fun bits I noticed:1) No one drives a four door car in Speed Racer. Every car -- even the ones parked in front of houses are two door vehicles.2) In Speed's locker at the beginning, he has a listing of lap times credited to people who worked on the film3) The thing that makes the costumes and backgrounds work in Speed Racer is almost exactly what made the Errol Flynn Robin Hood great -- they're all big swaths of solid colors. In Speed Racer's case -- they're all bright colors. For the most part, shirts are solid bright blue, or yellow, or red, or white. There's some exceptions: Some of the women wear polka dot dresses and some of the guys wear plaid shirts (the sort that you'd expect kids in the 60s to wear when they were watching the TV show).4) They definitely used small handfuls of extras and then composed whole crowds of them. I was entertained by picking out the repeated extras.5) Ads for "Shaolin Cowboy"! Hee!6) One of the portraits in the background of the Racer household is reminiscent of the track in Pole Position.7) In the exercise sequence, there's people on the climbing wall climbing upside down. There's also a guy on a set of rings doing an iron cross. He lets go of the left one and, without losing his orientation, touches his nose, then goes back to holding the left ring, and gives a shout of accomplishment.8) The contracts and leader boards in the film are legit -- no lorem ipsum malarky on almost anything in the movie.9) One of the driver HUD's blinks a message: "Objects on screen are closer than they appear"10) Christina Ricci. Wow.11) One of the cars has an advert for "Sempre Fi-ber dietary supplement" with the slogan "First in, last out". 8)12) "Was that a ninja?" "More like a nonja. Terrible what passes for a ninja these days..."13) Christina Ricci. Must freeze frame.14) Chim-Chim knocking people out with a monkey wrench 8D15) Languages recognized in the film: Celtic, Italian, French, Japanese, English. The countdown for the Grand Prix has each number in a different language.16) The Viking team is called "Thor-Axing". An amateur entomologist had fun there. Also worthy of note: "The Purgin Sturgeons".17) Christina Ricci. Again. Just wow.

One thing that makes me sad about all this wonderful clarity: it's almost certainly going to kill most of the fun had by prop guys. I can't imagine hairdryers ever being used as futuristic pistols again or signs in the background with jokes. A friend of mine thinks that it'll encourage it, but I'm almost certain that it's going to go the way of easter eggs in software and that all the neat, fun stuff is going to go the way of the dodo under the direction of serious people.

Ok -- time for me to catch some Z's. G'night folks.

Oh -- also, today's goats has some of the best dialogue I've seen from the series. 8)